In The Morning
by Nate-kun
Summary: She stirs earlier than usual, her eyes slowly flutter open. Her arm searches to hug him, but he isn't there.


**After Fluorescent Radiance, I got to thinking, "**_**Hey. There's too many stories concerning the clearly non-canon Dawn pairings than the canon one! Outrageous!**_**" so that and a few reviews for the story made me do some research into the fanfiction archives of Total Drama. And it appears that the only reason popular pairings like **_**Dott **_**came into fruition was because some gal kept writing fic beyond fic until someone else adopted the pairing, then it went out of control. So what's my plan to balance that which is non-canon and that which is kinda-probably canon? Do the exact same thing, but with the pairing that makes sense.**

**So expect more Bawn (Is that a good pairing name?) fics from me! Hopefully we get some sort of Bawn splurge eventually :) No offense to any other Dawn shippers, it's just that all these ships that clearly have little to no evidence of being canon getting the spotlight treatment isn't all that peachy in my book.**

**Or maybe you guys just feel uncomfortable with shipping a big guy. I dunno, you guys are all different, y'know?**

**Word Count: 1075 words.**

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In The Morning

She wakes up early that morning to find that he is not at her side. At first she's surprised, but after her intial reaction wears off, she's suspicious. The clinks and clanks of what she assumed was machinery nabbed her attention as they churned out of their basement.

Before, she would always wake up to either find him still asleep or _trying _to get back to it. Waking up today without him by her side is different. She's even surprised that she woke up this early in the first place, for her tenancy to stay up at night was her un-doing. Though perhaps that was for the better.

He always did appreciate the little circles under her eyes.

So as she sits cross legged in their bedroom, it clicks. He disappears in the wee hours of the morning, does whatever it is he's doing now, then returns to bed until it's their usual wake-up time, and mentions nothing of it to her.

She wonders if this isn't the first time he's done this.

Like a worried wife should, she descends into the darkness of the window-less basement in order to unearth his secrets.

The only light on in the room is dim, but she's still able to make out his body perfectly. He seemed to be tinkering with another one of his contraptions, a habit of his that she doesn't mind, that is to say, unless he makes cybernetic animals. But he's sealed off those plans for good in her respect. Her only question is why does he mess with it so early? He has all the time in the day, so why now?

She wraps her robe around her, for the basement is somewhat chilly. Once he hears her say his name, he jumps, moving away from whatever it was he working on.

"B...?"

He has his glasses on, which dilate his pupils and make him look quite nerdy. Fortunately, Dawn found that they made him look cute, not at all dorky. Although he can see perfectly, he feels as if the glasses better his vision, such is the reason why he utilizes it during work.

He calms down after realizing that it's only his wife, but he's still quite shaken up. She tries to walk over to him. The closer she gets, the more he seems to hide his contraption.

"Why are you awake at this hour? It's so early...Not that it upsets me, I'm just curious. Don't we usually wake up at a later time?"

He doesn't respond, though that's expected. He rarely talks because he doesn't want to attract unwanted attention. Since an early age, he's had some trouble with the differences between constructive criticism and plain criticism, and is afraid of accepting either. She understands, and wishes to teach him, but how can she when she grew up in the same manner? A loner who also didn't prefer unwanted attention, though this was simply because what attention she could get, was never positive.

She frowns, this isn't like him.

"You have been doing this for a while, haven't you?"

He nods.

"Why did you not tell me? Is there something you're trying to hide? If I am not supposed to know, then I won't press on. I just wanted to make sure you're alright..." she holds her hands behind her back, as if she is afraid of his response.

He decides that there is nothing else he has to lose, he's already been discovered and there's nothing he can do to get out from it. He steps to the side, revealing the something he's been hiding from her.

It's a small robot with spheres for hands, half-spheres for feet, an egg-shaped body, and a sphere for a head. An antenna sprouts from this sphere, and slightly curls inward to reveal a small lightbulb.

She reads the small tag scrawled on the underside of the bot's left foot.

_Buddybot._

Buddybot has seen far better days.

She inspects the pictures that accompany the robot. These pictures were interesting, for they showed a younger, much smaller B. She concludes that they depict him during his toddler years. One picture in particular caught her attention, a joyful B and Buddybot running about in the backyard.

She assumes from context that this is his first successful invention.

He sighs, and Dawn can tell from his aura that all he's been doing is trying to revive the poor thing.

For _all _this time though?

He places a palm in his face, Buddybot's machinery was far too outdated to consider a revival, most of his parts had rusted, and replacements were no longer available at any retailer.

"Oh, B...I'm sorry for your loss. But I still don't know why you didn't tell me..." she walks up to hug him, and he accepts it.

He mumbles something.

"I'm sorry, what did you say?"

He didn't want her to know that he was so attached to something so ancient and out-of-date.

B attempts to go back to work on him, but Dawn stops him.

"Let him rest. We need some too, don't you think?" she smiles, a little something to make him smile too.

It works.

B closes Buddybot's chest panel, accepting the fact that what little that was worked on today wasn't enough to bring the bot back.

As he walks back to their bedroom with her, he supposes that she's right. It was time to let go of the past, and if that meant finally saying goodbye to one of the first true friends he ever made, then so be it.

Closure was met, in both the form of his past, and the basement door.

Few seconds later, two round eyes blink open. Both of them visually supported by lightbulbs hidden behind the eyes' glass. The machine sits upward, but limps forward. The spine is no longer what it used to be, as it creaks and cries during the process. Buddybot looks at it's antenna. It's turned off. The burnt lightbulb hasn't been replaced in years.

The robot uses what was left of it's energy to attempt to make use of it's vocal function, a somewhat broken feature that was never fully worked out. The motor is already over-heating, and Buddybot is not sure if the action will be able to be carried out.

"_Th...th...Thank you, Beverly."_

A flash of electricity immediately surges through his body, and his eyes close for the final time.


End file.
